Last I saw the big "S" was free, save for media costs ($10 - $20). I've seen Linux releases for $120 at the local CompUSA. I've been at several Internet companies over the last few years and all of them have the Solaris/Linux debate at some point. In the end Solaris wins becuase:
There is direct acountablity and support for bugs.
Java is SUN, and thus runs better on SUN Software
Solaris x86 is faster in most cases than Linux
Solaris is easier to administrate than Linux (this really only is true if you use non-standard releases or multiple releases of Linux) --
He had come like a thief in the night,
I've been to tons of conventions. Unfortunately, most are not worth the time or cost. I've also noticed that the number of conferences in computers has grown extremely high. There's a simple reason for this: Companies spend tons of money. I've found this is the only way to afford conventions. The prices continue to rise, becuase the companies continue to pay. What we need is a good boycott of these events to bring the price back into line. But hey, the same can be said for baseball tickets.
become a presenter
That's good in theory, but the Convention types are on to you. Now presenters have to pay, and in some cases the guest speakers have to pay. In fact, I had someone call me at home and ask me if I would like to speak at an upcomming Telephony Conference. Once I said yes, his next question was how I would like to pay for that (all $999 of it). Needless to say, I didn't go.
Oh, and since you asked, here's what I could dig out of my box-o-convention-forms, most of these I've attended once, and aren't bad. Some lean a bit heavy toward IT and away from coding though:
I am just a little curious if these Cons are just ways for the Apache group to make money while CLAIMING that they are open source. I can understand donations to fund the effort, but $1200/person is more on the scale of a "political contribution". Wait... that just must be my paranoia...
I've found from mine and others experience that the best long-term mates for geeks are non-geeks. I've dated several geek women, and eventually it ends in a lot of bickering. The phrase "opposites attract" is true (if you doubt this, see the "Love Chronicals" on A&E a good show about the science of dating) I just got engaged to a writer, a well matched right-brainer compared to my left-brained existance. In the end you need balance.
That said, I find the two best ways to meet women are female roommates and the marketing/sales dept. Roommates are real convienient, you can live with a person for a while, see how you get along, and move slowly toward a relationship. Where to find roommates? Take out an ad, or use something like Yahoo personals. Believe it or not, I've had no problem finding women to room with. Seems that women like geeks in general, they view them as safe, intelligent, reliable, and not testosterone-laced.
As for sales/marketing depts, even if the entire group is married, just by their job definition they meet lots of people both in and out of the office. Befriend them, go to after-hours drinks, parties, etc. These events are perfect for geeks, because the discussion focuses around work, providing a easy way to start conversations. Normally, as a geek, everyone is interested in your particular insights to the job. Sales/Marketing always seems to view the geeks as thier secret weapon when the need something done or tough question answered; so they are always willing to invite you and get you involved. These meeting are perfect for meeting professional women and avoid the 20-something bimbos that seem to pervade the club scene. BTW, as an added bonus these events are usually expensed, and thus at the very worst you get a free dinner/drinks. --
He had come like a thief in the night,
OK, the penalties are light, it will be impossible to inforce (prove that it was SPAM) and better yet, it leaves a gaping hole for larger companies to take out smaller companies. (I can just see Microsoft claiming that VAlinux SPAMMed them with a newsletter and sue).
But how about this:
There's a proliferation of "distributed computing" client going around. How about the distributed anti-SPAM device. A small program that sits on everyone's machine, when a person receives a SPAM he enters the email/web address into the program. With more advanced email clients (like outlook) they could just file the spam to a special folder. Once the address is logged in the program, it sends it to a central server. If the server detects the same subject/address combination in X percent of it's registered clients, or Y number of times, it sends the "SPAM" signal to all the clients. at which point the clients generate an email to the address given and SPAM it with millions of messages (all garbage, with garbage addresses)
Ok, the idea might need a little work, but after two or three anti-SPAM bombs to spamming companies, they (or their computers) might stop.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
The real story (as I heard it anyway) on the Ebay/SUN issue was that it was not SUN's fault. A buddy of mine who worked at Exodus (where the melt down happened) told me that after Ebay claimed SUNs hardware failed, SUN sent out an investigation team. Turns out that Ebay had installed a rack of disk arrays in the corner of the co-lo center and did NOT put the vented raised floor tile in to allow the array proper ventilation. Thus, all the disks melted down. Ebay later apologized to SUN, but not publicly (or as publicly as they accused them) and there's still a lot of "bad blood" between the two.
As for Fujitsu, I am reminded of the time that Fujitsu called me wanting to convince me to go with Fujitsu switches/routers. My comment "When you think routers, you think Fujitsu?!" That was the end of the call. SUN, like Cisco, has problems, most big companies do. But there are some things you DON'T do when building a company, one is buy one-off equipment. If you have issues with the SUNs prices or service, check out off-lease resellers such as CRA where you can get slightly used SUN, Cisco, Compaq, etc. equipment at 40%-80% of list. They're actually much more knowledgable and easier to work with than SUN. --
He had come like a thief in the night,
First, I've found that most people are happy with either a simple web BB like UBBS, or just with Public Folders in Exchange. Anything else is usually too compliated to bother with. If you are an Exchange shop Public Folders are great. You have them by default, and people need their corporate email account to use them, and thus are always identified (cutting down on lameness of posts).
Secondly, and more importantly, I would recommend AGAINST public chat folders/groups. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen for the company. All you need is one off-color joke and some money-hungry disgruntled worker will claim foul. Sad, I know, but that is today's court system. If you DO have a public area for general discussions, be sure you slap disclaimers ALL OVER it. Even then, it might not help you in the more liberal states (like the People Republic of California).
Something like the following should be fine for most sane states: Note, the views, opinions, and remarks expressed in this forum are those of the individuals posting them. They are in no way the views or opinions of ABC Corp.
In my last company we standardized on Yahoo IM. This was great in that eveyone could have their own little conversations, and was not inteferring with the work day. Even better, the volume of E-Mail actually DROPPED due to people sending IMs to ask a quick question rather than an E-Mail. People used IM much more than Public Folders. --
He had come like a thief in the night,
I'm still on the quest for the perfect MP3 player. One of my attempts was a "cheap" computer running win98 (connected to the TV) with a special shell. While I canned the idea, I discovered in the process that you can build computers VERY cheaply just out of "normal" parts.
Here's what my system consisted of:
$72 Motherboard (Intel D810EMO SB 128 Sound, AGP)
$42 CPU (Celeron 500)
$18 RAM (64MB SDRAM DIMM)
$100 HDD (IBM 40GB)
$34 FlexATX Case
$9 CD-ROM (12x Generic) $275 Total for system
Ok, the HDD is excessive for you, and this system doesn't have a monitor, but as you can see you can build a computer VERY CHEAPLY through normal mail order.
As for how many, I'm not sure of your budget, but the IDEAL way to demonstrate this would be one for each student, that way you could have a particually complex task run by all student individually, and then again as a cluster. If you are not set on Beowulf specifically, I have some software I wrote for win98 than does clustering (in the distributed.net sense). It was made as a demo for one of my previous jobs, but you're welcome to use it for educational purposes. One nice thing, the source code shows that cluster coding is not that much more complicated.
Slashdot Mirror
There is direct acountablity and support for bugs.
Java is SUN, and thus runs better on SUN Software
Solaris x86 is faster in most cases than Linux
Solaris is easier to administrate than Linux (this really only is true if you use non-standard releases or multiple releases of Linux)
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
become a presenter
That's good in theory, but the Convention types are on to you. Now presenters have to pay, and in some cases the guest speakers have to pay. In fact, I had someone call me at home and ask me if I would like to speak at an upcomming Telephony Conference. Once I said yes, his next question was how I would like to pay for that (all $999 of it). Needless to say, I didn't go.
Oh, and since you asked, here's what I could dig out of my box-o-convention-forms, most of these I've attended once, and aren't bad. Some lean a bit heavy toward IT and away from coding though:
O'Rielly Open Source Con
Linux Business Expo
Open Source Forum
Java One (yes, there are a LOT of apache people there)
CMP Event list (good list of conference/trade shows)
I am just a little curious if these Cons are just ways for the Apache group to make money while CLAIMING that they are open source. I can understand donations to fund the effort, but $1200/person is more on the scale of a "political contribution". Wait... that just must be my paranoia...
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
I've found from mine and others experience that the best long-term mates for geeks are non-geeks. I've dated several geek women, and eventually it ends in a lot of bickering. The phrase "opposites attract" is true (if you doubt this, see the "Love Chronicals" on A&E a good show about the science of dating) I just got engaged to a writer, a well matched right-brainer compared to my left-brained existance. In the end you need balance.
That said, I find the two best ways to meet women are female roommates and the marketing/sales dept. Roommates are real convienient, you can live with a person for a while, see how you get along, and move slowly toward a relationship. Where to find roommates? Take out an ad, or use something like Yahoo personals. Believe it or not, I've had no problem finding women to room with. Seems that women like geeks in general, they view them as safe, intelligent, reliable, and not testosterone-laced.
As for sales/marketing depts, even if the entire group is married, just by their job definition they meet lots of people both in and out of the office. Befriend them, go to after-hours drinks, parties, etc. These events are perfect for geeks, because the discussion focuses around work, providing a easy way to start conversations. Normally, as a geek, everyone is interested in your particular insights to the job. Sales/Marketing always seems to view the geeks as thier secret weapon when the need something done or tough question answered; so they are always willing to invite you and get you involved. These meeting are perfect for meeting professional women and avoid the 20-something bimbos that seem to pervade the club scene. BTW, as an added bonus these events are usually expensed, and thus at the very worst you get a free dinner/drinks.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
OK, the penalties are light, it will be impossible to inforce (prove that it was SPAM) and better yet, it leaves a gaping hole for larger companies to take out smaller companies. (I can just see Microsoft claiming that VAlinux SPAMMed them with a newsletter and sue).
But how about this:
There's a proliferation of "distributed computing" client going around. How about the distributed anti-SPAM device. A small program that sits on everyone's machine, when a person receives a SPAM he enters the email/web address into the program. With more advanced email clients (like outlook) they could just file the spam to a special folder. Once the address is logged in the program, it sends it to a central server. If the server detects the same subject/address combination in X percent of it's registered clients, or Y number of times, it sends the "SPAM" signal to all the clients. at which point the clients generate an email to the address given and SPAM it with millions of messages (all garbage, with garbage addresses)
Ok, the idea might need a little work, but after two or three anti-SPAM bombs to spamming companies, they (or their computers) might stop.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
The real story (as I heard it anyway) on the Ebay/SUN issue was that it was not SUN's fault. A buddy of mine who worked at Exodus (where the melt down happened) told me that after Ebay claimed SUNs hardware failed, SUN sent out an investigation team. Turns out that Ebay had installed a rack of disk arrays in the corner of the co-lo center and did NOT put the vented raised floor tile in to allow the array proper ventilation. Thus, all the disks melted down. Ebay later apologized to SUN, but not publicly (or as publicly as they accused them) and there's still a lot of "bad blood" between the two.
As for Fujitsu, I am reminded of the time that Fujitsu called me wanting to convince me to go with Fujitsu switches/routers. My comment "When you think routers, you think Fujitsu?!" That was the end of the call. SUN, like Cisco, has problems, most big companies do. But there are some things you DON'T do when building a company, one is buy one-off equipment. If you have issues with the SUNs prices or service, check out off-lease resellers such as CRA where you can get slightly used SUN, Cisco, Compaq, etc. equipment at 40%-80% of list. They're actually much more knowledgable and easier to work with than SUN.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
First, I've found that most people are happy with either a simple web BB like UBBS, or just with Public Folders in Exchange. Anything else is usually too compliated to bother with. If you are an Exchange shop Public Folders are great. You have them by default, and people need their corporate email account to use them, and thus are always identified (cutting down on lameness of posts).
Secondly, and more importantly, I would recommend AGAINST public chat folders/groups. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen for the company. All you need is one off-color joke and some money-hungry disgruntled worker will claim foul. Sad, I know, but that is today's court system. If you DO have a public area for general discussions, be sure you slap disclaimers ALL OVER it. Even then, it might not help you in the more liberal states (like the People Republic of California).
Something like the following should be fine for most sane states:
Note, the views, opinions, and remarks expressed in this forum are those of the individuals posting them. They are in no way the views or opinions of ABC Corp.
In my last company we standardized on Yahoo IM. This was great in that eveyone could have their own little conversations, and was not inteferring with the work day. Even better, the volume of E-Mail actually DROPPED due to people sending IMs to ask a quick question rather than an E-Mail. People used IM much more than Public Folders.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,
I'm still on the quest for the perfect MP3 player. One of my attempts was a "cheap" computer running win98 (connected to the TV) with a special shell. While I canned the idea, I discovered in the process that you can build computers VERY cheaply just out of "normal" parts.
Here's what my system consisted of:
$72 Motherboard (Intel D810EMO SB 128 Sound, AGP)
$42 CPU (Celeron 500)
$18 RAM (64MB SDRAM DIMM)
$100 HDD (IBM 40GB)
$34 FlexATX Case
$9 CD-ROM (12x Generic)
$275 Total for system
Ok, the HDD is excessive for you, and this system doesn't have a monitor, but as you can see you can build a computer VERY CHEAPLY through normal mail order.
As for how many, I'm not sure of your budget, but the IDEAL way to demonstrate this would be one for each student, that way you could have a particually complex task run by all student individually, and then again as a cluster. If you are not set on Beowulf specifically, I have some software I wrote for win98 than does clustering (in the distributed.net sense). It was made as a demo for one of my previous jobs, but you're welcome to use it for educational purposes. One nice thing, the source code shows that cluster coding is not that much more complicated.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,